Can You Clean Thermal Paste With Water? — Kooling Monster

Can You Clean Thermal Paste With Water?

Water is often the “default” liquid for cleaning up stuff. However, it doesn’t work well with electronics, mainly due to its electrically conductive properties.

If you’re trying to wipe the thermal paste off your CPU, heat seak, or motherboard (when you accidentally spill it on), you might be wondering whether water is a good solution to dissolve and remove it.

Can you use water to clean thermal paste?

The simple answer is “No!”.

You should never use water to clean off the thermal paste from any of your computer’s electrical components.

If you use water, you’re essentially exposing your computer to the potential risk of permanent, unrecoverable damage. Simply put, you will most probably mess up your computer if you use water on it. Furthermore, dipping a cotton swab or paper towel in water, and then using it to wipe off thermal paste is also not recommended. In most cases, moisture will be leftover on your computer, and will eventually fry its components.

Why you can’t use water to wipe and clean thermal paste

There are two reasons why you can’t use water.

1. It’s NOT safe.

2. It WON’T work.

Water is electrically conductive, meaning the current passes through it very easily. If you use water on your computer and it’s left on your computer’s components when you turn it on, electricity will run throughout the wet surfaces. The unexpected flow of electricity can cause short circuits, and eventually fry out your computer components.

Besides being unsafe, using water for cleaning thermal paste won’t work, either. You see, most thermal pastes are made out of silicone or liquid metals. And both of them aren’t soluble in water. That means water cannot dissolve these materials and rub them off.

Hence, even if you ignore the warnings and try to use water to rub the thermal paste off, you won’t be able to do it. All you would do is spread the thermal paste around even more.

The best way to remove thermal paste correctly

The ideal way to clean off the thermal paste from your computer is to use a dedicated thermal paste removal wipe. And Kooling Monster KLEAN-01 happens to be the perfect solution.

KLEAN-01’s package comes with 20 wipes, and each of them is soaked in a specialized, thermal paste removal substance. All you have to do is to grab a wipe from the package and use it to wipe the thermal paste off; no need to apply different materials to it.

Furthermore, the wipe is quite large in terms of surface area, 12cm by 15cm to be specific, so handling it is pretty easy.

Last but not least, the package comes with a pair of gloves. We know you don’t want to wet your hands with specialized chemicals used for rubbing off the thermal paste, so you can use these gloves to protect your skin.

Here’s the step-by-step guide you must follow to clean thermal paste off your computer components.

1. Open up your computer and remove the heat sink.

2. Wear protective gloves given in the KLEAN-01 packaging.

3. & 4. Grab a wipe and rub off all the thermal paste from the CPU as well as the heat sink.

5. polish CPU & heat sink and if there’s excess thermal paste spilled on the motherboard, rub it off as well.

6. Wait a few minutes for it to dry.

Other alternatives to removing thermal paste

While using a dedicated thermal paste remover, like KLEAN-01, is the absolute best tool for cleaning thermal paste, you can also use a few other alternatives.

The most common alternative that people use is high concentration alcohol and isopropyl alcohol.

However, be noted that you can’t use your typical drinking alcohol for this purpose. You should only use high concentration alcohol, which people also like to call “rubbing alcohol”. We recommend only cleaning off your computer components with 99% alcohol, as a solution with a smaller alcohol concentration isn’t suitable. Once you have the solution with high alcohol concentration, soak a paper towel or cotton slab in it, and use it to wipe the thermal paste off.

The bottom line

Simply put, using water to clean off thermal paste is never a good idea. It won’t work as water won’t be able to dissolve thermal paste, plus, it would put your computer at the risk of permanent damage.

Instead, you should use high-concentration alcohol, preferably 99% alcohol/isopropyl, for this purpose.

But indeed, the best way to clean off thermal paste is to use Kooling Monster dedicated thermal paste cleaner. This handy pack comes with 20 wipes that come pre-applied with thermal paste removal material, ideal for removing thermal paste in the easiest possible way.